Shifting Market Frontiers: How Emerging Markets Will Reshape Global Pet Care

Key Findings

Emerging markets will play a pivotal role in the future evolution of global pet care

As the global economy pivots to emerging markets, the pet care industry will follow. Developing markets are poised for dramatic growth and are projected to outpace developed markets by a factor of six between 2019 and 2024.

Pet ownership will change in the face of large, densely-populated cities within emerging markets

Pet owners in emerging markets face a unique set of living conditions. None is more important than the prevalence of large, densely-populated urban centres. Small living spaces will drive demand for cats, small dogs and smaller package sizes. Pet care products are already innovating to address these challenges.

Pet humanisation trends are becoming more widespread in developing markets

Humanisation trends are on the rise in emerging markets. This will be a huge driver of global growth. At the same time, these pet humanisation trends may look very different in the unique local context of developing markets.

Pet humanisation trends can affect stray animals

As owners humanise their pets, they are also adopting a more compassionate paradigm for stray animals. Stray-feeding has become very trendy in many emerging markets, leading to innovation with stray-specific pet food formulas.

Humanisation trends also intersect with long traditions of feeding table scraps

Another unique cultural backdrop in many emerging markets is a long tradition of feeding pets table scraps. One of the biggest challenges of humanisation, in this context, is getting owners to switch over to commercially-made pet food.

“Leapfrog” retail markets in developing countries have bypassed modern store-based channels in favour of internet retailing

The evolution of the retail landscape in many emerging countries has been fundamentally different. Markets such as China have bypassed modern store-based channels and jumped directly into internet retailing. This creates new challenges for pet care brands in the form of a larger competitive set and new retail models such as super apps, social selling and mobile commerce.